Editorial: Rebuild, carefully

Waves crash on the amusement pier in Atlantic City as Hurricane Sandy hits.NOAH K. MURRAY/THE STAR-LEDGER

New Jersey just passed the first test. We absorbed Sandy’s hardest blow and we are climbing back to our feet.

Gov. Chris Christie has been spectacular in this crisis, in ways big and small. He has formed a constructive partnership with President Obama, whose help we desperately need. He has exhausted himself, working day and night to make sure the machinery of this recovery is humming. He has gone to the most ravaged neighborhoods and embraced people who were knocked down low. He’s talked honestly about what’s been lost, and at the same time, he personifies this state’s rock-hard resolve to recover in full.

In the short run, the task ahead is clear. We need power and gasoline. We need to clear roads, rebuild homes and make sure all of the most vulnerable are accounted for.

But we need to think carefully about the longer run. Because the sad truth is that we are likely to face more and more severe storms like this, thanks to climate change. And that means we should adjust.

Obviously, no one with Jersey blood pumping in their veins is going to abandon the Shore. It is central not just to this state’s economy, but to its soul. We cannot settle for anything less than a full and robust recovery.

But that doesn’t mean it should be rebuilt exactly as it is. Some homes are simply too close to the edge. In Sayreville last week, homeowners were begging for buyouts after some neighborhoods found their homes flooded for the third time in three years. It makes little sense to spend precious disaster relief dollars fixing the same home over and over, knowing that the next disaster will come.

Buyouts are expensive — and tricky. Homeowners often want more than they deserve, given their decision to buy in a vulnerable spot. Local mayors often resist them because it chips away at the tax base. And New Jersey’s Blue Acres fund, which finances buyouts, is chronically underfunded. Federal policy is changing on this front, though only slowly.

But it makes sense to move faster in this direction. Buyouts not only relieve suffering; they open up land needed to fortify dunes and restore wetlands, measures that will help reduce the severity of damage during the next storm.

Dune restoration projects have been proved to protect homeowners, even if they do sometimes interrupt the ocean view. Wetlands act as a giant sponge, absorbing water during floods and releasing it slowly afterward.

And more homes at the Shore will likely have to be put on stilts. That’s required in some flood zones now, and they should probably be expanded in the wake of Sandy.

Meanwhile, Sandy is teaching a hard lesson about New Jersey’s critical infrastructure. Too many electric substations, water pumps and sewer treatment plants are in harm’s way. State Sen. Barbara Buono (D-Middlesex) has suggested encouraging gas stations to install generators, so power outages don’t stop the flow of fuel.

The day after the hurricane, Christie tweeted this message: “We will rebuild the Shore. It may not be the same, but we will rebuild.”

That captures it. New Jersey is united in its determination to fight back against this disaster, as we must. But if we’re smart about it, the next storm may not be able to land such a heavy blow.